Controversial federal education platform: Expenditure of 154 million euros
The "National Education Platform" has been sharply criticized by the Court of Auditors. An inquiry by c't now shows the sums that the project has already cost.
At the moment, there is not much more to see of "Mein Bldungsraum" than an information website and source code on the openCode platform.
The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has spent a total of around 154 million euros on the “My Education Space” or “National Education Platform” project from 2021 to mid-December 2024. A further 97 million euros are available for 2025. This is according to BMBF documents obtained by c't as part of a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
Another BMBF document shows which organizations the ministry is funding as part of the project. According to the document, by mid-December, around 75 million euros had flowed to almost 190 recipients, including universities and non-profit organizations, but also numerous companies. These include not only IT companies, but also developers of learning content.
Videos by heise
As the BMBF explained on request, the recipients had to prove the compatibility of the funded projects with the education platform. However, there was no obligation to actually make learning content available.
“Operating and operator model” not yet ready
The educational platform is intended to connect “learners, teachers and educational offers” throughout Germany. Despite the high costs, however, the planned platform is still a long way from being ready for use. As the BMBF explained at the request of c't, “a concept for an operating and operator model is to be finalized by 2026”. The aim is for regular operation in 2027, so it has not yet even been decided who will operate the education platform. The Federal Agency for Leapfrog Innovations (SPRIND) is now responsible for the technical development.
The problem of the National Education Platform competing with the activities of the federal states has also not been resolved. When asked by c't, a spokesperson for the Conference of Education Ministers (KMK) emphasized that the federal states are working together on their teaching and learning platforms, specifically, for example, “on the development of interfaces and a content exchange platform, on a digital identity management system that can be used throughout Germany and on a media database with AI-supported services”. Sodix/Mundo is also an educational media library for the federal states. “It is to be feared that 'Mein Bildungsraum' is a redundant service to Sodix/Mundo for the school education sector,” said the KMK.
Court of Auditors criticized lack of coordination with the federal states
The Federal Audit Office had sharply criticized the BMBF's plans for the National Education Platform as early as 2022. The federal government had started the development “despite a lack of funding competence and without coordination with the federal states” and “without even beginning to demonstrate the need”, the federal auditors wrote at the time (PDF). The BMBF defended itself at the time by arguing, among other things, that the federal government's funding competence should be assumed for a task that could not be effectively performed by a federal state alone.
(cwo)
